Information

The English set was released beforeClash of the Blue Sky (Clash of the Blue Sky was before Team Rocket Strikes Back in Japan), as Nintendo wanted EX Deoxys's release to coincide with the release of the movie Destiny Deoxys. This threw the English sets out of sequence with the Japanese sets and caused a difference in the set number gap between the two languages. Because of this, the English set was less than a month behind the release of the Japanese set, which was (at the time) a record release.

Team Rocket Pokémon have a character window with an "explosion" effect.

The Pokémon type symbol in the top right corner of the card includes a similar graphic addition.

Team Rocket Pokémon display the Team Rocket "R" insignia at the bottom right of the attack box.

This was the first set to feature "owners'" Pokémon-ex. All of them belonged to Team Rocket, and they were all Darkness-types.

In Japan, Deck Kits once again accompanied this set. They contained a lot of cards that were missing from the main set, and were added when the English version was produced.

It was originally thought Team Rocket Strikes back would be given the prefix "ADV EX 2" in Japan, but the ADV prefix was rejected in the previous set.

Rocket's Raikou ex was not included in the main set. It appeared in Japan first as a Battle Road Promotional card and later as an insert with a Team Rocket Strikes Back Special Edition set (which included one Deck Kit and two Booster Packs). The English version featured as the secret box-topper for EX Deoxys.

This was the first set to feature Pokémon. Similar in most respects to Shining Pokémon of the previous generation of cards, these cards feature the alternate color version of the Pokémon they portray. The symbol is used to represent the star flash that appears when a shining Pokémon is encountered in the games; the rarity of the cards also reflect the rarity of these Pokémon. Card graphic differences include: -

Sections of the Pokémon artwork are outside of the character window, with the head or limbs overlapping the window border.

For the first time, the reverse-holographics feature the set logo in the bottom right corner of the character window. Also, the reverse-holographic versions of the holographic rares have gold foil name text, as well as the foil rarity symbol. These features were added to avoid confusion with the holographic rares. Every set since has followed this tradition.

The secret box topper for this set is Charmeleon. A secret Trainer card, Team Rocket Strikes Back, appeared randomly in booster packs.

The Prerelease card for this set is Dark Houndoom. Prereleases were held on the weekends of 30th/31st October and 6th/7th November 2004.

This expansion features cards for both Dark Arbok and Dark Weezing, which were also featured in the original Team Rocket expansion. These cards are also used in the Jessie and James theme decks, respectively, though by the time this set was released, the duo had already released their signature Pokémon in the anime.